Space Allergy (or Flowers for Ixche)

We had just landed in XF-55 when we saw that damn thing in the ground.

“What is that?” asked Ixche.

“It’s a plant. A flower.” I said.

“This is what you call a flower? it looks like nothing I’ve seen before.”

“They are useless,” I said. “If you pull them out from the ground they will lose their color and shape. They’ll die. You can’t melt them for alloys or build components with them. You can’t even buy a cheap drink with one. Useless!”

I know Ixche better than if I had built her myself. Hearing that word, “useless”, was like a challenge to her. She cupped her hands and extracted the plant from the soil.

“What are you gonna do with it?” I asked.

“We’ll see,” Ixche said mysteriously. She loves to annoy me.

After our expedition we boarded the ship. I was carrying Ixche’s backpack. Meanwhile Ixche was holding the plant in her hand. It was a tulip. And and ugly one.

In our greenhouse, where we cloned silicon potatoes and iron asparagus, Ixche planted the flower.

Of course she figured out how to grow the damm thing. In a month we already had two dozen bushes of those things.

Immediately I started sneezing.

I’ve been traveling for 3 months now in a ship filled with pollen, and I’m about done. Done with the runny nose and itchy eyes and scratchy throat. And the sneezes. All the never-ending sneezes.

Look, one of the things I like most about space traveler is no more spring allergies. I want to get rid of all those flowers, but Ixche has already started planning how to grow and sell these nuances anywhere in she goes.

It’s ok, I know she won’t sell a single one, and it’ll be worth it to prove her wrong for once.

Flowers! Ever heard a more useless thing in the cosmos?